The rope dancer is able to
walk the rope, because he is accustomed to it. Habit and practice are
also the reasons not only why a man can perform something but also why
he performs it with relatively less effort and attention. Habit is the
basis not only for our knowing something but also for our actually doing
it. Habit operates as a kind of stimulus, and, as may be said, as
necessity. The "power of habit" has often been described and often
condemned.

As a rule, opinions (mental attitudes) are dependent upon habit, by
which they are conditioned and circumscribed. Yet, of course, opinions
can also detach themselves from habit, and rise above it, and this is
done successfully when they become general opinions, principles,
convictions. As such they gain strength which may even break down and
overcome habit. Faith, taken in the conventional religious sense of
assurance of things hoped for, is a primitive form of will. While in
general habit and opinion on the whole agree, there is nevertheless in
their relations the seeds of conflict and struggle. Thought continually
tends to become the dominating element of the mind, and man thereby
becomes the more human.

The same meaning that the will, in the usual individual sense, has for
individual man, the social will has for any community or society,
whether there be a mere loose relationship, or a formal union and
permanent association. And what is this meaning? I have pointed this out
in my discussion of habit, and present here the more general statement:
The social will is the general volition which serves for the government
and regulation of individual wills. Every general volition can be
conceived as corresponding to a "thou shalt," and in so far as an
individual or an association of individuals directs this "thou shalt" to
itself, we recognize the autonomy and freedom of this individual or of
this association. The necessary consequence of this is that the
individual against all opposing inclinations and opinions, the
association against opposing individuals, wherever their opposition
manifests itself, attempt, at least, to carry through their will so that
they work as a constraint and exert pressure. And this is essentially
independent of the means which are used to that end. These pressures
extend, at least in the social sense, from measures of persuasion, which
appeal to a sense of honor and of shame, to actual coercion and
punishment which may take the form of physical